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Past studies have extensively examined factors associated with coping strategies that caregivers use to ameliorate distress or solve problems. While these studies have found that stressors and individual resources influence choices of coping strategies, they have tended to overlook caregivers’ social resources and have rarely considered the possibility that distinct groups of caregivers may use different sets of coping strategies. We conducted latent-class analyses to identify distinct groups of caregivers: those using no particular patterns of coping (unpatterned-coping), those centering on ameliorating distress (emotional-coping), and those focusing on both ameliorating distress and solving problems (hybrid-coping). Stressors distinguished all three coping groups, individual resources differentiated the hybrid-coping group from the emotional-coping group and the unpatterned-coping group, and social resources separated the emotional-coping group and the hybrid-coping group from the unpatterned-coping group. These findings indicate different factors contributing to caregivers’ use of different coping styles and suggest ways to better help caregivers.

The purpose of this research was to determine whether race had a significant, unique impact on adaptation to a common late-life impairment, age-related vision loss, after accounting for sociodemographic, health, functional disability, and personal and social resource variables. Older visually impaired African American ( n = 61) and Caucasian ( n = 488) applicants for vision rehabilitation service were interviewed in their homes. The results demonstrated that race accounted for unique variability in the domain-specific indicator of adaptation to age-related vision loss. The results support the importance of further work examining race differences in adaptation to specific chronic impairments in later life.

The objectives of this study were (1) to develop an empirical typology of physical health risks in racially and ethnically diverse older adults and (2) to examine whether the impact of social resources on depressive symptoms differs across the identified health risk groups (low, moderate, and high risks). The data source was the Survey of Older Floridians, a statewide survey of older adults aged 65 and older ( n = 1,432). Latent profile analysis with multiple indicators of physical health (chronic conditions, functional disability, and self-rated health) was used to identify three health risk groups (low, moderate, and high risks). The direct and interactive effects of the health risk group membership and social resources (social support and religious service attendance) on depressive symptoms were found. Of particular interest was that the positive impact of social support was most pronounced in the moderate health risk group.

Research that has examined the linkages between social resources and health out-comes has been hindered by a lack of clarity in the conceptualizations of key social resources such as social ties and social support. This article presents evidence that social ties and social support are separate constructs and should be treated as such. In a study of 203 family caregivers, measures of social resources were only moderately to weakly intercorrelated. The social resource measures behaved differently as predictors of caregiver burden, physical well-being, and emotional well-being in a path analysis, and the subjective perception of adequacy of social ties was more germane to explaining health outcomes than was an objective number of social ties. Researchers must clearly and consistently operationally define measures used to examine relationships between social resources and health outcomes if these enigmatic connections are to be fully understood.

This article reviews the current state of knowledge on how women's work and family experiences throughout the life course influence their economic and social resources. The article draws together literature on topics that usually have been treated as separate and distinct from one another. Although researchers increasingly are examining linkages between the "world of work" and the "world of family," most studies focus on one or the other. A broader picture is required to understand the separate and combined influences of work and family experiences on later-life resources.

Although research generally indicates a positive relationship between activity and well-being, the strength of the relationship depends upon the presence or absence of personal and social resources such as health, solvency, residence, and surviving spouse as well as the nature of the activity itself. When such resources diminish, remaining activities take on added significance for maintaining morale. The present study investigates the relationship between elders who are volunteers, employed, or participating in meal site programs, and life satisfaction. The responses of 1400 systematically selected elders to a needs assessment survey in a four-county area in northwestern New England suggest that those individuals experiencing the greatest number of resource deficits, such as living alone, residing in a city, and being in poor health, benefitted the most from participating in these formal activities. An unanticipated finding was that the strongest and most consistent predictor of life satisfaction for disadvantaged elders was participation as a volunteer for the Retired Senior Volunteer Program.

Associations between self-rated, scale, and interviewer-rated measures of mental health status and a set of demographic and functional abilities variables were studied. Data on these variables were obtained from an administration of the OARS to 1139 elderly in an urban community. Findings common to at least two of the three mental health measures were that physical health showed a strong association with mental health, inability to engage in activities of daily living was associated with poorer mental health even after controlling for physical health, married men showed better mental health than those not married, social resources were strongly associated with mental health for women but less so for men, and economic resources showed a consistent association with mental health. Different models for the three measures of mental health help to explain the inconsistent associations found in previous studies.